


For the Good of the Kingdom

by gwyllion



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:16:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/730900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyllion/pseuds/gwyllion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was written for the Merlin mpreg fest for the prompt: Arthur really loves the swell of Merlin's belly, and even more than that he loves knowing that he caused it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Good of the Kingdom

Arthur stirred in his sleep. A chill penetrated the silent castle walls in the darkest hours before morning. His eyes blinked open and he reacquainted himself with his surroundings, the familiar bed drapes, Excalibur resting on the side table where it glinted in the moonlight. His wardrobe stood opposite the bed, moved there by a team of servants, a reminder that this room served as his father’s bedchamber no more. In ascending the throne, Arthur had acquired his father’s rooms as well as his responsibilities to the kingdom.

Some responsibilities were more difficult to accept than others.

For so many years, Arthur doubted that he would ever live up to the expectations that were heaped upon him by the late king. He exhaled a long breath into the night air. It seemed like he could finally relax, now that his most important obligation was nearing fruition.

Arthur listened to the soft breathing beside him as Merlin slept undisturbed. Edging closer to Merlin’s warmth, he sought to ward off the chill until the bright sunrise of springtime would bathe the chamber windows, bringing heat with the light.

Beneath the covers, he stroked Merlin’s naked shoulder. His skin was smooth and warm. He traced the curved line of flesh and muscle, blazing a trail down Merlin’s back until his fingers fanned out over the swell of Merlin’s rump, ample with padding that announced his condition. Even with Merlin’s thick ceremonial robes and his favourite tunics cleverly altered to make room for his new girth, the pregnancy was obvious to the citizens of Camelot. 

His father would have been pleased.

Arthur certainly was.

Arthur’s hand glided up the warm skin to Merlin’s shoulder again, repeating the previous motion as he slowly skimmed his palm over the artful symmetry of Merlin’s curves. The moonlight cast a shadow of Merlin’s profile on the bedchamber wall. He nuzzled into Merlin’s nape, the short dark hair tickling his nose. He was pleased to know that he was the only person alive who had the privilege of doing such a thing, touching Merlin while he slept. A smile crossed his lips and he admonished himself to make his breath quiet so Merlin would get enough sleep. It was important now that he was carrying Arthur’s child. Arthur let his hand slip across Merlin’s hip to reach for the swelling curve that rested against the mattress.

His fingers played across the wiry hair that led from Merlin’s navel to his cock. Not wishing to awaken him, he rested his hand on Merlin’s belly, where the new life had taken root. Arthur sighed. He could hardly believe this was real. Merlin was his, and he was carrying Arthur’s child. There would be a Pendragon heir, after all.

~

The first time he saw it happen, Arthur thought Merlin had taken ill. He flung his spear aside with practiced strength, forgetting the rabbit that they had cornered in the thicket. The spearpoint pierced the ground, the shaft reverberating like a cricket’s wing in the cool sunlight.

Merlin keened quietly, hidden behind a tall oak, only his foolish neckerchief giving him away as it flew like a flag in the autumn wind. Dropping to his knees, Arthur pressed a hand to Merlin’s forehead. Merlin’s eyes fluttered open, the dark pupils leaving only a thin rim of blue encircling each orb, like a brushstroke of azure painted by a skilled hand.

“Arthur,” he moaned, his head falling back to hit the bark of the tree he slumped against in his fever.

His skin was flushed, a sheen of sweat upon his brow, despite the chilly air. His hands clawed the leaf-strewn ground while his bootheels dug a pair of trenches in the soft brown earth.

“Merlin, can you hear me?” Arthur asked, looking around for signs of a poisoned dart or a tripwire that might explain Merlin’s sudden fall. Merlin was always in such a hurry, so eager to return to the castle to help Gaius that he barely waited for Arthur to make the kill. “What’s wrong?”

But Merlin’s lips were sealed shut, as if speaking would reveal something even more secret than the magic that Arthur had discovered he possessed only last year.

At the time, he couldn’t believe Merlin had kept his secret from him for so long. He suspected Uther’s threats of incineration on the pyre or decapitation by the executioner were enough to keep even an idiot like Merlin from spilling such a dangerous truth to the winds of the five kingdoms. In the end, Merlin revealed himself, without much fanfare, shortly after Uther’s death.

At first, Arthur was angry. He added Merlin to the seemingly endless list of people he had trusted who eventually betrayed that trust for their own gain. But as time went on, Merlin used his knowledge of Arthur’s moods and with the same delicacy that allowed him to lure a butterfly to his outstretched finger, Merlin convinced him that he only had used magic for Arthur’s benefit.

Arthur was embarrassed that he hadn’t noticed that Merlin had saved his life no less than a dozen times. He had believed it was he alone who vanquished the monsters from Camelot, he who struck an enemy with Excalibur at just the right moment, he who possessed the wit to escape from harm. But it had been Merlin all along. When Merlin showed Arthur his abilities to heal wounds, to polish armour, and to keep his bath water hot, Arthur decided magic wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

“Get up,” Arthur said as Merlin writhed against the tree. “We need to get you to Gaius.”

“I can’t,” Merlin said, his knees bent and spread wide, his arse squirming against the rough ground beneath him.

“Get hold of yourself,” Arthur said. Merlin looked like a man possessed by an enchantment. It was the only explanation, Arthur thought as he observed the state of his manservant and protector.

“Get away,” Merlin cried, pushing at Arthur’s hands, but clinging to Arthur’s chainmail, as if he was undecided whether he wanted Arthur to stay or go.

“Come on, you’re not in your right mind,” Arthur said. “No different than usual, really, but up you go.”

He ignored Merlin’s protests and hauled him to his feet. He slung him over his shoulders like an unwieldy sack of grain and made his way back through the forest to Camelot.

~

“I should have told him about this before,” Gaius said, pointing to a page in the book of magic that he had brought down from the highest shelf in his quarters.

“Told him what?” Arthur asked.

Merlin moaned like a tavern whore as he writhed in the blankets of the narrow bedstead in the alcove adjacent to Gaius’s quarters.

“This is what happens when a young man comes into heat for the first time,” Gaius said, his voice hushed to protect some of Merlin’s modesty.

“Heat?” Arthur swallowed as his face turned the shade of Camelot red.

“Yes, heat,” Gaius said, one eyebrow raised. “It seems as though Merlin is coming into season. It’s the only explanation.”

“Season?” Arthur asked, his brow furrowed.

“Arthur, as you know,” Gaius said, clasping Arthur’s shoulder. “Merlin is not like normal men.”

“Oh, believe me,” Arthur said with a grin. “I know that all too well. He behaves like an idiot most of the time. If I didn’t know that he was capable of keeping my bath water piping hot and changing the trajectory of my enemy’s weapons by using his magic, I’d have no reason to believe he was more than a half-wit.”

“Well, there’s more to his magic than just that,” Gaius said, closing the book.

A cloud of dust puffed into the air from the old pages.

“Like what?” Arthur asked, trying unsuccessfully to ignore Merlin’s wails as he pleaded for relief. 

“According to some scholars, Merlin may be able to conceive a child,” Gaius said, glancing at the alcove where Merlin whimpered pitifully.

“That’s impossible,” Arthur said. “Merlin is a man. You said so yourself. I’ve even seen his dick dozens of times while we were camping out. Merlin is no girl, as much as he acts like one sometimes.”

“He’s not truly a girl,” Gaius said. “But if the studies of the ancient Druids who chronicled these occurrences are correct, Merlin is very much a man…. a man capable of bearing a child. This heat is Merlin’s body’s way of telling him that he’s ready to be bred.”

Magic was a strange thing. Arthur shook his head. He couldn’t begin to try to understand it or its practitioners. Arthur had heard the rumours that his own conception had been aided by the forces of sorcery. Uther had been so obsessed with providing an heir to succeed him he had turned to sorcery to obtain a healthy son. It was Arthur’s mother’s death that ultimately made Uther ban magic in Camelot, an edict that Arthur had only recently overturned with Merlin’s confession that he had been born with the magic Uther so hated.

“Well, he can’t bear a child now,” Arthur said. “Doesn’t he need a mate for that?”

Merlin let out a sob so loud that it rattled the beakers on Gaius’s workbench.

Gaius glanced toward the alcove. “It’s true, he would need a mate in order to conceive,” he said.

“He hasn’t had time to find a lover,” Arthur said. “Can’t he just… er… take care of the need in the way a man would?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Gaius said. “Unless he conceives, he will be in agony. Until the heat ends, there is no way to slake his desire, short of a mating that results in pregnancy.”

Merlin cried out with anguish. Arthur looked up to see him sucking his own fingers into his mouth.

“For how long?” Arthur asked.

“I’m not quite sure. You need to give him time for this to pass,” Gaius said.

Merlin wriggled out from beneath the blanket, his body twisting and turning, his hand shoved down the back of his loosened breeches.

It pained Arthur to see him like this. “I wish there was something I could do to help him,” Arthur said, shaking his head. “You say this is the first time. Will the other times be just as bad for him?”

“Only Merlin can tell us that,” Gaius said. “We should let him rest for a while—alone. Maybe he can do something to make the heat pass more quickly.”

“But how?” Arthur asked.

Gaius shook his head and gently closed the door to Merlin’s alcove. “That’s for Merlin to decide.”

Arthur listened to Merlin’s muffled cries behind the door. “I hope this passes soon,” he said, shaking his head in confusion.

Arthur left Gaius’s quarters so Merlin could suffer alone with his unusual problem. Later that night, Arthur was haunted by Merlin’s desperation, but in the days that followed, Merlin seemed to return to his usual self. While they never spoke of the heat again, Arthur knew that Merlin experienced the deep longing every few months. Periodically, with no explanation other than a pained look or a brief apology, Merlin would disappear for a few days. Arthur was always relieved when Merlin returned to his side, refreshed and acting as if nothing had ever happened.

Arthur never gave Merlin’s ability to conceive a child a second thought… until Gwen left.

~

The marriage had been difficult enough for them both. What started out as a path to fulfill his obligation to set a good example for the citizenry, utterly failed when Gwen proclaimed her love for Lancelot.

Arthur could hardly blame Gwen for leaving the kingdom to start a new life with his best knight. He wasn’t much of a husband, always riding off to lead a quest, a hunt, or just to patrol the kingdom’s borders with his men. And then, there was the issue of an heir. No matter how often he came to her bed, she never quickened with a child that would rule over Camelot one day.

If the issue weighed heavily on Gwen’s spirit, the pressure was a thousand times heavier on Arthur.

What kind of king couldn’t even sire a squalling infant of his own?

Arthur moped his way through council meetings, relying on Merlin to guide his decisions. Fortunately, the sorcerer had gained quite a talent for managing the citizen’s requests and disputes. In time, Merlin had proven himself invaluable as a liaison between the people and their king.

When Arthur wandered the corridors of the castle, despondent over the loss of his wife, it was Merlin who guided him to his rooms and cheered him with a flagon of wine and a game of dice.

Still, Arthur longed for the one thing that would help him to regain his confidence as a king, as a leader of the people—an heir to take his place after his death, proof that his bloodline would live on to rule Camelot in fairness and bring prosperity to the realm. It was for the good of the kingdom. He was sure that this pervasive sense of failure was what eventually drove Uther to use magic to bring about his birth.

“Time for bed,” Merlin said one evening when Arthur had thought too much about his shortcomings.

Arthur reluctantly pushed his chair out from the table and made his way to the dressing screen.

Merlin bit his lower lip as he helped Arthur out of his tunic.

Arthur almost didn’t notice Merlin’s grimace as he warmed the water in the washbasin. So few things sparked Arthur’s interest these days that most of Merlin’s behaviour passed unremarked.

“Merlin?” Arthur asked, narrowing his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“It’s nothing,” Merlin said with a wave of his hand.

But Arthur knew better.

“Merlin?” Arthur asked. “Is it one of your _heats_ again?”

Merlin lowered his eyes to the floor before peering up at Arthur through his lashes. “Ummm… I think so.”

And so began Arthur’s quest to father a child who would lead the kingdom into the next era.

~ 

It all seemed so long ago. The kingdom thrived, and the citizens of Camelot showed a new respect for their king and his cheerful consort. Before long, a babe would join the royal family and Arthur would never again have to worry about siring an heir.

Merlin stirred beside him.

Morning had not yet broken. For the first time since being crowned king, Arthur let himself enjoy these early hours to dally in his own pleasure. He grabbed a handful of Merlin’s arse, meaty in his hand. Nudging Merlin’s thigh forward, he traced the length of Merlin’s cleft, slick with come that Arthur spent the night before. Merlin pushed back onto Arthur’s fingers and let out a long sigh.

Yes, Arthur thought, some responsibilities were more difficult than others to fulfill, but he was happy to do his best.


End file.
